The radical Tea Party strikes again!

Tuesday

May 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMMay 29, 2012 at 1:38 PM

By the West Jersey Tea Party media chairman

Why does the mainstream media like to throw the word “Extremist” in front of anything conservative? Right Wing Extremists… Religious Extremists… Right Wing Radical (same thing). I’ll tell you. To give us a bad name so you don’t want to hang out with us. Did it work? Let me remind you about all the years cigarettes were touted by the mainstream media as cool and everyone that was anyone needed to be smoking… now we know they cause Cancer. Today the Cancer IS the media.

For those of you who would like to believe the mainstream media when they talk about who makes up the Tea Party, I’d like to give you a glimpse of who the Tea Party is from an insider’s point of view.

I have had some experiences I’d like to share with you. Since personal charity choices are made anonymously, I can only speak of the one’s I have been personally involved with that of whom involve the West Jersey Tea Party. There are so many more that I am not privy to, but I want to share what I know.

Because I participated in a Scouting Food Drive last fall and was talking about how hard my den worked collecting food, I discovered that the President of our organization would go to Camden at least twice a month to help at a local food bank. He’d help by bringing food or fix things since he is handy. He’s been doing this for more years than he can remember. He asked if I had collected anything like large bags of rice or anything of bulk that a food bank could benefit from and if we could contribute; no products that require milk though because they don't have proper refrigeration. Our President made a comment to me that was very moving. “The people you are collecting for are in need of help with food, but at least they have a roof over their heads. These people I go help have nothing.” With approval, I separated the food and sent it off to the Camden Food Bank. The food drive folk were happy to agree to the contribution. Everyone needs help.

A member of my community, family with three small children (ages 4, 7and 9), had a tragedy right before Christmas. Their whole house burnt to the ground because of a friend who was careless in their kitchen. I felt the need to do something, so I reached out to the West Jersey Tea Party membership to see if anyone could help. This family had no clothes, presents burned up in the fire, nothing. Immediately members from my group acted.

One member works at a school as a special needs teacher and who gets mediocre pay, offered to donate anything they could sitting around their house. When they married they ended up with duplicates they didn’t really need, like an extra TV. They donated all clothes and furniture they could spare and their son offered me his DS and all his games. He said he didn’t really need them and thought the little kids from the fire could use them more than he could. He gave both his DS and his Gameboy with all his games… what a boy he is.

Another member who is older didn’t have those household resources but quickly wrote a check for $400. She asked no questions except “Are they okay? Do the kids have everything they need? Where will they stay? And who can I make this check out to?” This woman has a heart bigger than she is tall.

Another member reached into his pocket too with the goal that this fire would not destroy Christmas for these children. He went out and bought a 6’ tall imitation Christmas tree, tree decorations, wrapping paper, tape, and containers to package the supplies in for the future. He also gave each child a card with a gift certificate. There are others with more instances of this type of charity, but I think you understand what I’m getting at by now.

My group contacts their legislators, we pass out flyers to help educate people that are not paying attention to the politics that affect their daily lives, we periodically have rallys in front of legislators offices (not homes like the Occupy or Union crowd), and we invite speakers to our group to talk to us and help us understand certain topics better… for we can only educate once we are educated.

But where does all this RADICAL talk come from? Who are these EXTREMISTS the media spouts off about all the time? I must tell you, that even though I am from the West Jersey Tea Party and proudly so, I’ve been to other Tea Party meetings and they are all pretty similar to ours. They are just average every day Joes and Sallys who are out to keep the American dream alive and well for the children of our future.

I personally go door to door to pass out literature about West Jersey and have heard comments made something to the effect, “I’m Republican, but I don’t go to those extremes.” So I asked “what extremes would you mean?” and they had nothing to say. Of course not. When you are constantly told that Tea Party’s are full of extremists, you tend to start to believe it without knowing why you think that way.

It’s funny that the media will find a tragedy and work so hard to link them to a Tea Party and if they don’t find one, they will then look for a religious connection as a backup. And they stretch those connections more than you would ever know.

So if you hear of people creating havoc, causing destruction to businesses, protests that have a mission of preventing small companies from making a livelihood or denying a family privacy… you are hearing about extremists of a different sort… Occupy Wall Street participants… those that are being arrested for various crimes, but not the Tea Party… for this is not our mission.

Why does the media want to so desperately show Tea Party folk as religious right wing radicals anyway? The only answer I can come up with is that religious beliefs get in the way of their agenda and they fear the real message of the Tea Party to fellow Americans.

Our message is clear and don’t believe for one second from any other source that it is anything but this…

We are dedicated to supporting the Constitution as it is written, defending the United States of America from threats, foreign and domestic, and preserving the American way of life; to this end, we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

If you would like to join us, we meet at Braddock’s in downtown Medford, NJ. Our website is www.WJTP.org. If you join us on our web page, you will get updates about our events. Come see the ‘radicals’ in action!

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